


All That Is Taken

by ERNest



Series: diagonal fall [2]
Category: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Related Fandoms, Wonderland: A New Alice - Murphy/Boyd/Wildhorn
Genre: Bad Dreams, F/M, Guilt, Memory Loss, Refusal to Communicate, Unreliable Narrator, Willful Misinterpretation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-07
Updated: 2015-10-04
Packaged: 2017-12-14 05:09:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/833109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ERNest/pseuds/ERNest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something is missing and he's sure it's his fault.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Infinite Wash

He enjoys doing the dishes. After the guests have cleared out, it is something of a relief to let his brain soak along with the plates. The warm water is like a blanket and he plunges his hands right into the basin. When he’s cleaned most of the mess from the porcelain, he brings the stack back to the table and grabs whatever wouldn’t fit in the first load. Sometimes he can’t remember what he’s already washed and ends up doing the same ones twice or thrice, but he doesn’t mind the chance to stay for longer.  
“You missed a spot,” she teases, and he jumps.  
“Yes, and you’re still here watching,” he answers without looking up.  
He can feel her smirk. “Well, I don’t have to be.” But she’s still not making a move to leave, just like he knew she wouldn’t.  
He lets her wait just a little bit longer before he tells her “No, you can stay if you’ve got nothing better to do.”  
She stays, of course, and washing dishes just became that much better.

So she watches him forever while he washes infinitely. They seldom speak because they do not need to fill this blessed quiet with chatter. He doesn’t need to see her to know that he is seen, but one day his gaze falls over to her form and something deep down clicks into place.  
He hardly has time to examine this new feeling because she is coming for him. Her body crashes through space to reach his and they click into place together in a conversation that needs no words because they have hands and lips, which speak louder than anything else they could use, and why has it taken this long? And _oh_ and –  
Morris blinks. He doesn’t know what time it is, or where everyone else is gone, which means that he has five minutes before the next party begins. He picks up the jagged pieces of the plate he must have dropped and straightens out the table. He’s fine.


	2. Snapped Integers

His mouth twists into questions that fit around the shape of something missing. Some piece of the past should be here in his mind. Rather, it shouldn’t be. Something happened wrong and now it’s on its way to not happening and that is a _good_ thing. He has dodged a bullet here, so he shouldn’t be pushing at it. Why would you look a gift horse in the mouth?  
But he wants to know, he needs to understand what went wrong even when it will most likely turn out that he is at fault. Because what else could it be? He did something wrong and it upset her so she made it go away, which is just the way it should be.  
She should never have been in his mind and this is all a terrible mistake. She _was_ there, he can tell he thought of her because the hole in his head is a perfect silhouette of the one woman he’s really cared about. She said she wouldn’t. He _thinks_ she said she wouldn’t, but it’s different from just thinking mutinous thoughts about Wonderland, because everyone grumbles about the state of things. But thinking like that (like _what_?) about Her is not acceptable, so she lifted all memory of it from his mind.  
It could be worse, couldn’t it? She might have killed him for his offense. He deserves it, whatever makes her turn away like that, whatever makes her run, must be a crime punishable by worse than this. And she could have made him forget that he forgot. He’s seen it happen to the others so why not him. Knowing about it and learning to hate it may have protected him, but he wonders now what sort of protection this knowledge really is. The sort fitting for a traitor.

Something changes in the bearing of the March Hare as subtle as the shift from deify to defy. He has lost himself and in that absence he has lost his compass. The Hare is just a shadow sleeping in the full moon, but with no planet around which to orbit he is merely aimless. A fury that has nowhere to go rises up and so he must aim it inwards, the only place that’s steady enough to attack. He resists himself and how he has fallen into place.  
The Fiends have always admired how he seemed to look directly at each of them whenever he spoke. It was like joining a marvelous conspiracy or being welcomed into a madcap family. They notice now how his gaze doesn’t land on any of them quite like before, because it is only directed at someone who does not look back.  
They leave in a mass exodus that feels like a schism. Most of them explain before they go that it _isn’t_ that they’re leaving him behind. It’s just – well, it’s _Hatter_ and they need to be with her, he understands. Morris does understand. He’d leave himself behind if he could. He really does want to stop being himself so he has a chance to be someone she doesn’t hate.  
He doesn’t want to wake up into cold mountains and tea that doesn’t work right. He doesn’t want to wake up at all when it’s so nice to imagine that he has a friend. In his sleep he dances through the waves and she holds him up and their feet don’t bleed when they walk. But a beautiful world is still only a lie and he won’t be happy until he opens his eyes and accepts the truth of empty. She’s not coming back and if she does it won’t be for him, but for the Tea Party, which is how it should be.

Why should he stay? Because it's too lovely to end.  
What if it's so lovely that it has to end? Then he will make that happen, but only once he’s tried everything else; it will be his choice to cut it off, not hers.  
He's tired of watching her coming and going, so he makes sure that he is not around the next time she is he can feel her coming, how could he not? And so he gets enough food for a day or two and just starts running. He can get further than she can, he knows this. He feels the earth crumble beneath his feet and it feels good. Why should he stay to watch her never look at him? It's only going to crush both of them and they'll resent each other. He breaks the cycle. And if she cares enough to chase him with his tank, he’ll be able to stop.  
Or they could _talk_. He thinks that once and the idea of her words scraping against the inside of his skull is enough to make his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth. He uses crude sign language, which the dormouse translates for him. In his self-imposed silence, he wonders if he was wrong. Maybe being torn apart wouldn't be so bad if she were the one to lash out at him.  
There are so many things he might be saying wrong, but he doesn’t know what has changed, so there’s no way to tell. It’s safest to be overly cautious, so he just keeps from saying anything at all. He doesn’t look at her, for fear she can read something in his eyes, some insolence he never intended. He can feel the bad words waiting for him to slip up and ruin everything, but the end could be brought about by some innocent remark and he’d never know. So he holds it all in and all of it burns at his throat. By this point, he has no idea if he’d be able to say anything at all. He gets so frightened by the idea of muteness that he does not even try to open his mouth. It will hurt him so much more to remember that he has nothing worth sharing with the world. Silence becomes such a powerful habit that he forgets it is something he should be trying to break. A cage that keeps him safe from the murderous outside isn’t a prison but a blessing. He is so well behaved because he knows how lucky he is to not be killed. The stars outside might burn him, so he does nothing out of the ordinary to attract no undue attention. It’s better to ask no questions and tell no lies. He is happy, he is happy, and so he must learn to appreciate what he has.


	3. Mother Cannot Guide You

The Mad Hatter’s spoon tinkles against her teacup as she stirs in the sugar. She glares at the other end of the table where the March Hare’s bread knife trembles across the surface of the butter. The instant he dares glance her way, a plea and an explanation dancing in his eyes, she is resolutely looking any direction but his. She is so convincing that even though he could have _sworn_ he felt her gaze pounding hammers into him, he must now assume she hasn’t taken the least notice of him in /years/. And all along the edges the Fiends catch each other’s eye. _Mommy and Daddy are fighting_.  
Because that’s what it really comes down to, isn’t it? Most of the Attendants were here before the Hatter with no other name, and at least half of them remember Haigha’s Table, but that isn’t the point. These incumbents are the ones who _made_ them. They weren’t anything before; they were people from all different paths who happened to come for tea sometimes, but after Hatter and Morris, they were Fiends. You don’t walk away from people with whom you share a name, you just don’t. They were all here for the birthing process, reforged into a group who loudly declares that there is no room, no room, but then turns around and welcomes the newcomer.  
But what have they become now that their mommy and daddy are fighting? A Fiend can’t just stop being a Fiend because the two who kickstarted the transformation are no longer a united front. People start to wonder if they will have to choose sides, if this is somehow their fault, if there is anything to be done. What if one of the heads leaves the table, and some follow? What if they both leave and there is nothing but a howling void in their absence? Could the Children of the Teapot become orphans so soon after Becoming? Mostly they just hope these two will see each other again.


	4. Deepest Ache

You are a window right into me. I want to chase you and see myself as you help everyone else to see me. I would smash you so I can then stay hidden. But then you’d be gone and I don’t want to accept the possibility, too late, that I needed you after all. Not just missing either – damaged into oblivion and it would be my fault. I want to see and I need to not be seen and you’re not here to tell me what to do, not that it would help, because you are part of the problem, if not my entire internal conflict. Come home or stay away; both, neither, I don’t care.

He wants to die. Everything would be better without him. She won’t miss him or need to pretend she cares and that’s all that matters, really. It is only a bonus that he can also be free of all this.  
Are the dead haunted by the living? He doesn’t consider the matter until he’s holding the knife. Would it change a thing if he’s breathing or not? He already sees her everywhere and still can’t talk or touch. The only difference will be Hatter. The damage will fade once she does not need to look at him.

“Hatter” he calls, looking over the heads of the congregants, but it doesn’t matter what kind of personage he is; he is still shoved below the waves of people everywhere and the current sweeps him along.  
He takes a deep breath so he can look again, but it hurts him, She seems to be nowhere because he’d know the rivers that come from her eyes, and she’s not there, she’s not there “Hatter please.”  
Morris swims through bodies because next to her, they are only lost souls but she is their queen — missing enough to become solid and he can’t follow her anyway. He chokes on everything, because it is full of nothing and she isn’t here.  
And she’s there, on the edge of his vision, which always becomes his center, because Hatter is Hatter. He crashes through space to get to her and her mouth opens in shock like the arms she turns into a waiting hug.  
It takes forever, but he drags his arms around her waist and she’s real and solid and there, but it isn’t like he’s really touching her because he can’t be worthy, he can’t. He drowns in his tears and her hands are in his hair, making the world gentle again.  
“I love you. I love I love I love.” He can’t do this; he tries to pull away from her, but she holds him still and in respect he doesn’t move. He breathes her in and then stops breathing. His heart slows so the seconds that he can be with her are longer.  
“You’re okay. Morris, you don’t need to do this, please don’t give up.” But he hasn’t given up; she is his life and blood, so what remains is extraneous.

Hatter, I need you. I need you like the deepest ache there is and when you’re not there, I’m blind with sepia. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that if you don’t come now I might not get a chance to ask you again. Listen to me, listen close, because this is important. I think I’m dying; I’m sure I’m fading apart and it’s all my fault because I should never have fallen for you in the first place.


End file.
